November2014

Taidong Nov 11: Big dry continues. No rain now for over 7 weeks. The previous longest dry spell i can remember was about 3 weeks, so we are well into new territory now. 500mm below yearly ave. Seems dry all over Taiwan, though north less affected. East and west coasts both very dry and noticed 'die off' in the the grasses on the mountains around south ilan. Apart from that, nice weather. Still warm mostly, moderate dbjf, sunny mornings and cloudy in the pm. ku ling has lost most of its leaves, berries yellow and dropping. Tree near gate in full bloom with its pink flowers. Saw first giant hornet in a long time last week - buzzed me while i was working - but a remarkable decline on previous years - can only assume it's the dry conditions.

Nov 25 Taidong: First fireflies appeared 4-5 days ago and now there seems to be quite a lot of them (and pretty much right on time compared to other years). This despite there not having been any serious rain. 9mm over a week ago and this followed on from 5mm a couple of days prior and some coldish conditions (but still no heater)and it looked like it might be starting to relent around that nid nov mark. But then nothing since then and in fact the weather feels like it's heading back towards summer with a series of warm to hot sunny days and temps nudging 30C and mostly moderate to almost no dbjf (though no southerlies). If you didn't have to water things, you'd say the weather was great! Hornets have appeared - not in huge numbers but was getting seriously buzzed and cornered by an asian giant at my work station. Sprayed some insecticide on the spots they seemed most attracted to and that does seem to deter them coming back. That ornery looking lizard with the yellow on it, on the other hand, seems almost tame - like we've got some cattle-egret symbiotic thing going. Collected wood today and there does seem to be some die-off of grasses near the beach at least. At my place they've gone into a fairly dormant phase, but still green.